Casablanca

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The Hassan II Mosque dominates the Casablancan skyline

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The city is full of spectacular architecture

Casablanca is probably Morocco’s most famous city, only rivalled by Marrakech, but you can put all black and white thoughts of Bogart and Bergman aside; this is a living, breathing city that will draw you to its heart.
It’s a cosmopolitan place packed with art galleries, fine restaurants, top fashion designers and cutting edge nightlife. At the same time it’s full of striking architecture such as the Hassan II mosque and the Mahkama du Pacha. You can spend time and money in the old medina or the giant shopping mall that’s the largest in Africa. Casablanca is a cultural melting pot, a progressive city that welcomes visitors with open arms.

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Casablanca Beaches

Casablanca Cultural Festivals

Casablanca Family Days Out

Casablanca Food and Drink

Casablanca Golf

Casablanca Hammams

Casablanca Luxury

Casablanca MICE

Casablanca Motorcycling

Casablanca Music Festivals

Casablanca People

Casablanca Retreats

Casablanca Shopping

Casablanca Surfing

Casablanca Beaches

Image: Sunset in Casablanca

Morocco’s largest city is bordered on its north-western edge by some lovely beaches. Just a short distance away from the city centre is Ain Diab, Casablanca’s main beach. Around a mile long, it has pale sand, great views out into the Atlantic and many beach clubs to visit.
There are often large waves around the shores of Casablanca, so while it’s a great place to have a paddle, most people looking for a swim choose one of the pools along the seafront instead. There are also many cafés and restaurants that line the beach, great for exploring the local cuisine whether you fancy for a light snack or something more substantial.

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Casablanca Cultural Festivals

Image: The world best jazz musicians perform at Jazzablanca

Morocco’s largest city holds festivals throughout the year, so it’s worth coinciding your visit with one of them for an extra special experience.

Jazzablanca is celebrated between April and May, and as the name suggests it’s a festival of jazz, attracting some of the top names in the genre.
April is also the month for the annual Casablanca Theatre and Culture Festival. Every year a theme is chosen and the artists and performers display their works to delighted onlookers. Meanwhile, every October Casablanca holds a Contemporary Dance Festival, drawing people from across the country.

Casablanca Family Days Out

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Have high octane fun in Casablanca

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Casablanca Mall is the place to find all sorts of fun

Morocco’s largest city is full of great things for families to do. If you’ve got an adventurous clan, there are places where you can get the heart pounding with activities such as go-karting, paintball, football, climbing, skating, swimming, and even riding around on mini quad bikes.
If you have younger children you can enjoy your days in Casablanca at the parks, petting zoo and theme parks that are in the city. Morocco’s largest water park is in Casablanca, and it’s a great place if you want to escape the heat for a day. Africa’s largest shopping mall, Morocco Mall, is in Casablanca too, and as well as all the fantastic shops it has a theme park, IMAX 3D cinema and even an aquarium you can scuba dive in!

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Casablanca Food and Drink

Image: Delicious fresh olives are just one of the things you can enjoy in Casablanca

The vast sprawling city of Casablanca is cosmopolitan, blending Arabic and European influences, up to and including its name which means ‘White House’ in Spanish. As you might expect there is a wide variety of food to be sampled here. Strawberries are sold from wheeled carts, tapas restaurants sell Spanish cuisine and there are even a few sushi bars about. And of course there are plenty of places to sample traditional Moroccan food, mainly based around the medina.

You can’t mention Casablanca without thoughts immediately turning to Bogart, Bergman and their meeting in Rick’s Café. Film buffs will be delighted to know it is actually possible to eat in Rick’s Café, or at least a replica (the movie was filmed in California) and it’s a good place to indulge in a Negroni while listening to the pianist play As Time Goes By.

Casablanca Golf

Image: Casablanca has fantastic courses for you to play

If you love culture and heritage, and also love playing golf, Casablanca will suit you very well indeed. The city has several excellent courses, one of which is the centrally located Royal Golf Anfa. Designed in 1930, this course has been at the heart of the city, and the city’s golf circuit, ever since. Casa Green Golf Club is built in a natural amphitheatre and The Annawras Golf Club a few miles south of the city is the smallest eighteen hole course in all of Morocco. The Royal Golf Mohammedia, is a spectacular course a few miles outside the city. Here holes run through avenues of pine trees and alongside the crashing Atlantic Ocean, giving you a nice mix between links and parkland.

Royal Golf Mohammedia
Designer: Hugues Lambert (1937)
Holes: 18
Par: 72 (5, 870m)
· Clubhouse with restaurant and bar
· Locker rooms/changing facilities
· Buggy, trolley and club rental
· Driving range and putting green
· Golf school
Getting There: On the outskirts of Mohammedia a few miles North of CasablancaWOW FACTOR: Includes tennis courts and a swimming pool at the club house www.rgam.ma

Settat University Royal Golf Club
Designer: Ronald W. Fream
Holes: 9
Par: 37 (3,215m)
· Clubhouse
· Locker rooms
· Buggy, trolley and club rental
· Driving range and putting green
· Tuition available
Getting There: In Settat, 50km South of Casablanca on the N9WOW FACTOR: Originally designed just for the students of Settat Universitywww.golftoday.co.uk/clubhouse/coursedir/world/morocco/settatuni.html

Casablanca Hammams

Image: Find peace in a traditional hammam

The hammams in Casablanca offer a relaxing experience, which retains many of the age old traditions of this exotic culture without making you uncomfortable. The hammams in Casablanca have considerate staff who make you feel at ease, and the deep indulgent scrubs will leave you glowing. The hammam buildings themselves, always bustling hives of genteel activity, are charming traditional buildings used as a platform for friendly meetings and exchanges of gossip, so keep your ears open, who knows what you might find out!

Casablanca Luxury

Image: Enjoy a luxury stay when you visit Casablanca

In Morocco’s largest city, it’s easy to find five star hotels; the tricky part is which one to choose.
As with most cities in Morocco, you have a choice between the old and the new, and grand old riads rub shoulders with stylish new luxury hotels offering red carpet treatment. These are places in which you can expect outstanding comfort, grand elegance and stunning design.

As well as the accommodation, Casablanca can offer you plenty of activities to help you live life in luxury. There are some gorgeous spas and hammams, world-class golf courses and many gourmet restaurants in the city, as well as Africa’s largest shopping centre. Trendy boutiques and some of the finest jewellers in the country ply their trade here allowing you to take a piece of Moroccan luxury home with you.

Casablanca MICE

Image: Morocco is great for work AND play

Casablanca is the financial hub of Morocco, and so is an ideal location to host your business event. It can be reached directly from most major European cities by air, and has excellent links to the rest of Morocco by plane, road and rail.
This seaside city has a range of five star hotels and resorts to stay in, most of which have excellent facilities for business events including conference suites, lecture halls, and rooms for workshops and meetings. At the end of a long day delegates can make the most of the luxury facilities at hand such as private swimming pools and spas, or head out into the city to enjoy the beach, play a round of golf on of Casablanca’s five pristine courses, or simply explore one of the world’s most famous cities.

Casablanca Motorcycling

Image: The land around Casablanca is wonderful for exploring on a motorbike

As one of the major entry points to the country, a lot of holidaymakers use Casablanca as the starting point from which to rent a bike and head straight off to explore the rest of the country. We’d recommend a longer stay, so as not to miss out on the sights and sounds of Morocco’s largest city. Exploring on a motorbike is one of the best ways to get around this sprawling metropolis – you make short work of traffic jams, while getting to places that are too far away on foot or pedal cycle.
There are plenty of places to explore near the city too, you’ll soon find yourself travelling through traditional Amazigh villages and finding the cultural heart of Morocco.

Casablanca Music Festivals

Image: Casablanca is full of different styles of music

Morocco’s largest city hosts three major music festivals every year. The biggest is simply named Casablanca Festival and is a meeting point for musicians from across the globe. Held annually for three days in July, it’s a celebration with great live music, movie screenings, urban art, dance contests and a host of other delights.
Boulevard is an urban music festival, representing the burgeoning underground music scene of Morocco. Hip-hop, electro, rock, metal and fusion beats can be heard through the three days in September, and some of the coolest acts from Morocco and the US perform there.
A more laid-back event is Jazzablanca, a jazz and world music festival that attracts both local talent and international names every September. Previous performers have included Joss Stone and Ibrahim Maalouf.

Casablanca People

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The Amazigh culture is strong in Casablanca

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Women of Casablanca

Morocco’s largest city owes much to its nautical past. Amazigh fishermen plied the waves there for centuries before the city was founded in the 7th century. It soon became the home of pirates and privateers who targeted ships travelling past the city. It was eventually taken by the Portuguese who destroyed it in 1468 before building a fortress there in 1515. Over the years the city has changed hands several times, and been held by both the Spanish and the French. That, and its proximity to Europe meant that at one point in the 1940s and 50s nearly half the population was European. (The name of the city itself is, of course, Spanish meaning ‘White House’.) Today it retains its cosmopolitan nature, and visitors will find that residents of Casablanca are very welcoming to visitors.

Casablanca Retreats

Image: Imagine yourself on a relaxing retreat in Casablanca...

As Morocco’s largest city, Casablanca is full of people and traffic, but by the same token it has plenty of places to find peace and relaxation. In the 1960s and 70s it was part of the hippy trail and a large part of that laidback vibe still exists in corners of the city.
A yoga retreat in Casablanca is a popular option, and many companies can organise these for you. A beauty and wellness retreat is another way to enjoy your holiday. If you just wish to take a bit of a time out amidst the hustle and bustle of the rest of your trip then there are many spas and hammams where you can pamper yourself.

Casablanca Shopping

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Brightly coloured spices for sale

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The grand Casablanca Mall provides a 21st century experience

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Traditional Moroccan goods for sale

Casablanca is a shopping metropolis. It embraces modern European and African elements and mixes them with a growing sense of cultural heritage, making this a truly global shopping experience.
Anyone looking for some retail therapy cannot miss the new Morocco Mall, Africa’s largest shopping centre. Here well known designer brands sit comfortably alongside the craftsmen of Casablanca; there’s a traditional souk to browse. The mall contains an extravagant fairground, and if you tire of browsing the hundreds of shops, why not immerse yourself for a while in the cool surroundings of the aquarium in the centre of the mall?
The city itself is not as densely populated with shops as many other tourist spots, but if you head down to the Medina, or the traditional Derb Ghallef neighbourhood, there is a diverse range of stalls selling everything from arts and crafts to mouthwatering delicacies.

Casablanca Surfing

Image: Hit the breaks around the Casablancan coast

As with every surf spot along the Moroccan coast, the water is warm (around 18-24°C) and it benefits from some great swell, especially when the Atlantic waves come in from the north. Beginners should aim for either Jack Beach to the south of Casablanca or the beaches to the north of the city. Dar Bouazza has nice clean wave, perhaps the best left-hand point break in the country.

One of the most notable landmarks in the city is the impressive Hassan II Mosque, and the sea in front of it provides some of the most reliable surf around. The mosque is a remarkable sight to enjoy as you ride in on a six foot wave.

Staying In Casablanca

Image: Casablanca has a wide range of holiday accommodation to choose from

Morocco’s largest city has a huge choice of accommodation for travellers. From economical hostels for those travelling on a shoestring to luxury hotels with 24 hour butler service, there will be somewhere in Casablanca that is ideal for you. This is a place where the traditional mixes with the modern, so western style hotels stand side by side with ornate riads – where will you choose?

Getting To Casablanca

Image: Casablanca is the flight hub of Morocco

Morocco’s biggest city is served by Mohammed V International Airport, which receives flights from all over the world. You can travel directly from Gatwick and Heathrow on Royal Air Maroc, and indirectly from many other cities including Manchester, Birmingham and Norwich.
The airport is only a few miles from the city centre, and you can either ride one of the hourly shuttle trains to Casa Voyageurs railway station, and then taxi to your destination, or take a petit taxi straight from the airport. Casablanca also has a reliable tram service which you can use to reach your destination in the city.
If you’re travelling from within Morocco the city has excellent rail and road links to the rest of the country, and is close to Rabat, El Jadida and Marrakech.

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So you’ve got a week in Morocco, how can you cram everything in? Whilst we’d recommend a more leisurely exploration of the Kingdom, here’s how you can do seven cities in seven days. Monday – Arrive in Tangier on the ferry from Spain and head for the Grand Socco, a palm-lined plaza at the entrance…